This list is devoted to those characters in the movies that took things just a tad bit to far in regards to the amount of attention they showed a particular person. There are various reasons that are attributed to why people may devote excessive time and energy to someone. It may start from an admiration or maybe even a disdain. But at the end of the day if a certain line is crossed, the result is obsession. These are the top ten movie characters that crossed that line.
10. The Boy Next Door (Noah)
Most young men have that one older woman that they have a crush on. Most of the times these women don’t even know. For those young men that were lucky enough to get it, a simple smile from that woman would likely have served to boost his ego for years to come. But “The Boy Next Door” tells the story of a young man that was a little more ambitious with his crush and got a little more as well. Noah is a teenager that moves to a new neighborhood. He ends up befriending another young man and takes notice of his mom, Claire. She is also a teacher at their school. So we have an attractive teacher that just happens to live next door; could it be any more tempting for Noah? One night he catches Claire starring through her window at him. He feels she has an interest in him and he makes his move on her by inviting her over. Surprisingly she accepts but things went farther than the average high school males’ fantasy when they actually shared a romantic night. Of course he was on Cloud 9 after getting the woman he had been admiring. But Claire understanding that the dynamics were not the best for them to continue seeing other, decides it is best to call it off soon after. Let’s just say what ensues is what one might expect (and then some) from a testosterone driven young man who has so swiftly obtained and lost his older woman crush. From hacking her computer and getting himself into her class at school to kidnapping her friend, he leaves no stone unturned to rekindle the love he lost. He even made copies of the picture of them sleeping together and leaves them in her classroom. He tries to use the potential of him releasing a tape he claims he has of them having sex, to convince her to be with him. He is jealous that Claire’s estranged husband is coming back into the picture and eventually kidnaps him and Claire’s son (his one-time friend). It culminated in an epic battle in a barn in which Noah was killed. After seeing the obsessive, insane behavior of Noah, “the boy next door” has a whole new meaning.
9. Obsessed (Lisa)
There are many wives that feel that their might be the object of a co-workers eye when they head off to their work place for the day. After all, many times people spend more time with those co-workers than with their significant others. Sometimes in these settings innocent flirting may occur. In other instances it can result in the coworker somewhat crossing the line. But the level that the antagonist in the 2009 film “Obsessed” took it to was outright insane! Derek is a successful man in the financial world in corporate America. He finds himself being shown a high level of interest by a new temp worker, Lisa. Believing it to be innocent, he is initially flattered but refuses to indulge in her advances. She then ups the ante by trying to seduce him in the most cliché of places; the annual Christmas party. Once again Derek manages to escape her advances and preserve the sanctity of his marriage. When Lisa quits her job, Derek thinks he is finally in the clear and can rest; but shortly thereafter she begins sending him love emails in a relentless pursuit of his attention. He even goes to a company retreat where Lisa pretends to be his wife and is able to sneak in his hotel room where he comes to find her lying in his bed naked, with signs of an attempted suicide. When Derek’s wife, Sharon. confronts him at the hospital following Lisa’s attempted suicide, she feels Derek was having an affair and kicks him out of their home; talk about bad luck! Lisa continues her obsessive behavior and shows up at Derek and Sharon’s home, convinced the baby sitter she was a family friend, and goes to Sharon and Derek’s new born son’s room. When they return home they find their child is missing but are relieved to find he is safe in the back seat of Derek’s car. Sharon now understands what a disturbed individual Lisa is. She goes so far as to broke in again and place rose pedals in Derek and Sharon’s bedroom (yes she took it there). Of course this story ends the only way it probably can with an obsessed person the likes of Lisa. Lisa’s behavior from the time she is introduced into this film totally justifies the title of this movie.
8. Single White Female (Hedy)
There are different types of obsessive people. We have already covered the love interest obsessive characters. But in the 1992 movie “Single White Female”, we get to witness “the mimic obsessive” (yeah I just made that up). It starts with the main character Allie, finding out her fiancé is cheating and deciding to break off her engagement with him. She seeks a roommate and soon meets Hedy who is ready to fill the position. It does seem weird that Hedy is overly protective of Allie, whom she just met, but Allie enjoys having some form of companionship right after her break up. She even buys Allie a dog (awwww). But Hedy seems to want all the attention for herself and tries her best to prevent the fiancé from getting back in Allie’s good graces. Hedy is so infatuated with her that she starts dressing just like her and getting the exact same hairstyle. The obsession continues as she starts to go out in public and actually pretend to be Allie. Allie finds some of Hedy’s letters and learns Hedy is not even her real name; it’s Ellen. Huhhh??? Allie then starts to realize that she is not in an ideal situation. Hedy even has a sexual encounter with Allie’s estranged fiancé’ (yes the one she was trying to stop Allie from seeing) with him believing it was Allie. When he figures it out and threatens to expose her she kills him with her shoe heel of all things! When Allie learns of this she tries to escape but at this point the obsession has reached the point of no return and Hedy reveals herself to be the violent maniac she has done so well to hide. When someone can go from trying to imitate you in every way possible to taking you hostage, then that character is definitely worthy of the top obsession list.
7. Joy Ride (Rusty Nail)
Two brothers, Lewis and Fuller, traveling on a road trip headed to pick up Lewis’s crush would likely make for a scenario where their minds begin to wander. So what more entertaining way to keep themselves occupied than by using their CB radio to prank truck drivers? They pretend to be a female named “Candy Cane” and wait for someone to take the bait. Well a trucker going by the name of “Rusty Nail” does just that and they get a kick out of setting up a fake date with him. They tell him the hotel room that the fictional Candy Kane is in but instead give him the room number of a person they had an argument with earlier. They watch from their room with total jubilation as he approaches the door with champagne in hand. But things take a turn when they find out the next day that the same man whose room they sent Rusty Nail to was killed and left on the side of the road. The thing with practical jokes is they are funny when the initial joker decides it’s over. Well the brothers wanted the joke to be over but it seemed as if Rusty Nail was just getting started. When the brothers get on the CB radio and reveal they are in fact the voice of Candy Cane, ole Rusty wants an apology but is met with disrespectful words. He replied back that they should fix their taillight, suggesting he is following them. It is now evident how obsessed he is because he is aware of who they are yet still is requesting to meet a character he sees no sign of. He begins his relentless pursuit of the brothers up and down the highways even crashing into another truck. Believing they have finally ditched him, they get to their destination and pick up their female friend, Venna. But Rusty jumps back on the CB radio to let them know he is aware that they have a female with them now. They began trying to lose him again. But he takes his obsession to another height when he kidnaps Venna’s friend and tells them they have to follow his instructions to get her back. How obsessed do you have to be to kidnap the friend of the friend of the guys you are obsessed over?? Even after they apologized and participated in his sick games designed to embarrass them, he continues to follow them. When they try to get back Venna’s friend he ends up kidnapping Venna as well! He ends up trying to kill them by crashing his truck through the room the women are in. We all know that truckers have little time to deviate so imagine how insane this man had to be to make it his mission to detour for days to follow a few pranksters. I think it is safe to say that the brothers were wrong to prank him, but all of this for a practical joke was a little obsessive to say the least.
6. Fear (David)
We all understand the intricate dynamics of teenage love; wanting to be around your sweetheart as much as possible and wanting to talk on the phone until the late hours of the night when you can’t be around them. And we understand the flip side to that; the parents that tell you that you are spending to much time with them, and it is something about them that they don’t like. Nothing exemplifies this trust dynamic more than father with daughter. Many times it is over exaggerated because in most cases the most well-mannered of young men still does not escape the skepticism of dad. But in the thriller “Fear”, father definitely knew best. Nicole is a 16 year old who goes out one night and meets David. He says all the right things and appears to be the perfect gentleman. Of course she is happy for her dad to meet him but her father isn’t getting good vibes. It isn’t long before David shows his true colors of violence and insecurity. He gets in a fight with one of her male friends and even hits her in the process. Nicole breaks up with him but he is not giving up that easy and soon works his way back into her good graces. After learning his background is a violent one, Nicole’s father confronts David and demands he leave Nicole alone. David is a manipulator and claims Nicole’s father attacked him and uses this as a way to get her to grow closer to him. He even gets a tattoo of her. For a teenage boy to do that now would raise an eyebrow, but for one to do it in the 90’s was well.. Obsessive! He had even created a shrine for her and replaced a picture of her father’s head with a picture of his. With David breaking into the family home, killing the family dog and even killing Nicole’s male friend, it is safe to say his obsession was at a ridiculous level. And who could forget the scene of a crazed David jumping at the peephole of Nicole’s home screaming to let him in the house?...Chilling!
5. The Fan (Curly)
The thing about a devoted sports fan is they will support their team and/or favorite player religiously. They will have heated arguments with people in their defense. But many of them live vicariously through the players they love. And in some instances that “love” they show can spill over into obsession when they feel their beloved players’ lives and decisions should somehow coincide with their approval. And this could not hold truer than with San Francisco Giants super fan Gil “Curly” Renard in the 1996 movie, “The Fan”. So when Giants great Bobby Rayburn gets into a hitting slump, it’s only right that Curly stands up for him. He goes at other fans he feels are not supporting Rayburn. He calls into the radio station to lend his support to him. He even frequents a bar that he knows the Giants players visit and attempts to offer Rayburn moral support, only to be met with a not so friendly response from Rayburn. But that doesn’t stop Curly’s unwavering support of Rayburn. Believing that Rayburn’s on field difficulties may be occurring because of him not having the jersey number he wants, he kills the Giants player that has that number. Yes he killed a player over a jersey number! Once Rayburn gets the number and his play improves, the unstable Curly feels some sort of pride that he has assisted in the sudden turn around. He is so obsessed that he even begins to sit outside Rayburn’s beach side home and watch him through his binoculars. One day while doing this, he sees Rayburn’s son drowning and he saves him. Rayburn, feeling indebted to him, invites him inside and through the evening converses with him eventually leading to sports talk. Curly pretends like he does not even follow baseball; believable to Rayburn who does not remember their encounter at the bar. When Rayburn’s answers to Curly’s seemingly innocent baseball questions don’t line up with the gratitude he feels should be shown to fans, he kidnaps Rayburn’s son. In Curly’s twisted mind, he even wore it as a badge of honor to take the boy to his friends business to show him off. Understanding that he was unstable, the friend tries to help the boy escape and is murdered by Curly. He has one final level of obsession by demanding that Bobby Rayburn hit a homerun in the next game in order to get his son back; talk about crazy! For those who have not seen it, this is one of the ones where I will not reveal the conclusion. It is definitely worth watching to understand the level of obsession he combined with the game of baseball and his favorite player.
4. The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (Peyton)
Claire is in good spirits going to a routine pregnancy check-up. But after being inappropriately touched in that check up by her doctor, Dr. Mott, she decides to come forth and expose him. Once charges from other women begin to come, the guilty Dr. Mott could not handle it and committed suicide. That doctor’s wife who was pregnant as well was so distraught behind her husband’s death that she ended up losing her baby. When Claire gives birth to her son she begins looking for a nanny. And guess who shows up to fill the position; the wife of the doctor that Claire exposed! Of course Claire has no idea who she is but Peyton (her alias) makes a great impression and is hired by Claire and her husband Michael. But the only goal she has in mind is making Claire feel the pain she has felt and she sets out on a meticulous campaign to destroy her and her family. She begins secretly breastfeeding the new baby. She verbally abuses the family’s long time trusted grounds keeper Solomon, who is on to her deceit, and convinces them that he has an attraction to their daughter, causing them to remove him from his position. How low can you go? She continues her obsession as she starts to make a play for Claire’s husband. She even puts a plan into motion to make Claire think that her best friend, Marlene, was having an affair with her husband. And not only does Claire believe it, she confronts her husband screaming and accuses him of it at a surprise party in which she was unaware that Marlene and many of their friends were hiding in the back. This causes a rift between Claire and her husband. Peyton makes Claire’s daughter start to want to be around her more than her own mother. She has an intricate kind of obsession as she wants to destroy her, but wants it to play out over a long period of time because she enjoys slowly seeing all that Claire loves slip more towards her favor. When Claire’s friend Marlene discovers who Peyton really is and threatens to tell Claire, she kills her. She really did a mental number on Claire, but eventually all is revealed and they kick her out. But Peyton breaks back into the house for one last obsessive psycho finale. But how obsessed does one have to be to come to work for a person every day and constrain their disdain for their employer just to methodically break them down on all levels?
3. Cape Fear*1991 (Max Cady)
Time in prison can serve to do several things. For some it means rehabilitation. For others it means complacency in the system. But for Max Cady it meant years of time standing still devoted to exacting revenge against one man. When he is convicted of a raping a woman, Cady feels his appointed attorney Sam Bowden sabotaged his chance to be exonerated. He devotes his 14 year prison sentence to training his body and his mind to be able to break down Bowden and make him feel the pain he felt. Upon his release he goes about this by constantly popping up where Bowden is and quoting the law and how he failed him. He actually uses his knowledge of the law to place Bowden in a compromising position, causing him to hire men to rough Cady up. He ended up beating all of them and actually took Bowden to court where he played the victim role. He shows interest in Bowden’s mistress only to lure her to his hotel to brutally attack her, causing emotional distress to Bowden. He killed the family dog. He posed as Bowden’s daughter’s drama teacher and manages to establish a connection with her and even convinces her to resent her dad. When the family tries to flee to get away from him, it comes to no avail as he has already placed himself under their car and rides with them to their new destination. In fact his final act of pure obsession is so epic I don’t even want to tell what he did for the people who might not have seen it(you will be shocked). From the time Cady was incarcerated, he devoted the remainder of his life to stalking and harassing Sam Bowden; literally.
2. Misery (Annie)
For most content creators, having people tell them they enjoy their work feels good. An even higher level of flattery is if a fan of their work were to give the creator specifics about their work, solidifying their appreciation of it. And the apex of most content creators’ satisfaction in regards to appreciation of their work is to have people who are so moved by it that they tell them it changed their life in a positive way. But what occurs for author Paul Sheldon is much more than flattery and much more than any content creator would desire. One day when he is driving home in blizzard like conditions he has an accident and is knocked out cold. When he came to, he is being nursed back to health by Annie. Annie just happens to be Paul’s number one fan and a nurse. How “lucky” would one be to find themselves receiving around the clock care from a person that loves their work, after being in a bad accident? Paul is delighted by this and allows Annie to read his new novel as well as his final book in the series that she loves so much. Upon learning that her favorite character in Sheldon’s books (Misery) dies, she crossed that fine line from showing flattery to showing signs that would cause someone to start to feel afraid. Annie flies into a rage and barricades Paul in the room and demands for him to come up with a new script. One day when she leaves, he finds out that she has been on trial for killing kids and she even used lines from his book in her trial. Understanding that he is in a bad situation he sets a course to escape. She comes home and notices he has been out of the room and breaks his ankles with a sledge hammer to keep him for trying to escape; a little obsessive…. She eventually kills an officer who came to her house searching for Sheldon. She then tells Sheldon that they are going to die together. He understood he had to act and act quickly. She is so obsessed with Paul writing about the Misery character that when he sets the new script on fire it causes her to be so preoccupied with putting the fire out, that he has an opportunity to kill her; and he takes it. Who would think that someone would go to those lengths to preserve the idea of a fictional character?
1. Fatal Attraction (Alex)
Dan is a successful lawyer in Manhattan with a loving wife and daughter. Everything was going fine in his personal and professional life. But what was about to play out in the 1987 blockbuster film “Fatal Attraction” would take obsession to another level. Dan then meets Alex on a work related engagement. They enjoy a lunch and everything seems innocent although there is some chemistry in the air. But when his family leaves for the weekend, Dan can’t fight the temptation and ends up having an affair with Alex. He is content with the one night affair but he soon finds out that shaking Alex off isn’t as easy as he thought it would be. She basically begs him to come see her again. He reluctantly does and before the evening is over she slits her wrists. Of course after this incident he understands the need to distance himself from her, but to no avail. She comes to his job and constantly calls his office and home. He changes his number and even puts his apartment up for sale. But when he gets off of work one day his wife introduces him to a potential buyer: yeah you guessed it Alex! Imagine being in your home with an obsessive mistress and your wife, and having to play it cool. Alex’s level of obsession was so egregious that you began to feel a little sorry for Dan, the cheater. Dan moved the family to another home but that doesn’t stop Alex. She sends mail to the new residence and sits outside his house and angrily watches him with his family. She goes even farther by breaking into Dan’s house and killing his daughter’s pet rabbit. She took it to the ultimate level of cruelty when she left the poor “wabbit” boiling in a pot on the stove. At this point any rational person who has never seen the movie would ask “How much farther could she go?” And the answer from anyone who has seen it would simply be “you have no idea”. Alex kidnaps Dan’s daughter from school and takes her to an amusement park. She even has the nerve to drop the little girl off at her house as if she’s done nothing wrong! When an outraged Dan burst into Alex’s home and almost strangled her we are left to see how obsessive she is because she cracks a smile after almost being killed. It’s as if finally getting Dan to pay her attention was worthwhile even if she almost died in the process. She goes on to break into the house again and Dan finally has to take lethal action. But what a roller coaster ride to get there! In the early parts of her interactions with Dan when Alex delivered her classic line “I will not be ignored”, no words could have held any truer!
Hope you enjoyed this list into the minds of some of the most obsessed individuals we have seen on the movie screen. 